Ni Hao From Beijing

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Greetings from the Great City of Beijing - Site of the 2008 World Olympics,
We have been in Beijing for 3 days now. It is extremely hard to find time to post blogs but will try to get this out before I have to meet the group for dinner. Beijing is a city of 14 million people. Being in the dry northern part of China, Beijing shares many of the same challenges of Southern NEvada such as a major water shortage (tap water is not potable), traffic congestion (40,000 people were killed in auto accidents the first 4 months of the year in Beijing), air pollution ( a bad day in LA is a good day in Beijing), and illegal immigration (estimated to have 2-3 million in the city today). The problems might be similar but the scale of the problems here is overwhelming!

Today we visited the section of the Great Wall that was built during the Ming Dynasty, about 1400 AD. It was built to secure a mountain pass that was the main route into Mongolia. I climbed more stairs today that I ever want to see again. We also visited the Ming Tombs that were all built in the same area because of excellent Feng Shui.

Well, if you completed your last assignment you were probably amazed to find out that China has one person for every minute backe to about 466 BC!!! I did my calculations for 1.3 million and rounded a few things off, but if you got anywhere in that vicinity you were correct. Your assignment this time is to do an internet search on the Great Wall and try to learn 3 new things about this incredible engineering feat.

Hope you are all well!
Love, Ms. E. (AKA Mom, Grandma, Patty, Honey)

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Comments

[hina...]

i wish i was you!
omg...what fun..i so wish i was you right now...the GREAT WALL OF CHINA! i always wanted to see it...! what else have you done? is the shopping fabulous..is their types of "bazzars" like they have in india? wow..well have fun...and what was our last assignment? -hina

[Shauna]

Great Wall
Boy, am I confused! I have been looking at different websites of the Great Wall and have found way different information. While most sites agree that it was built by 3 main dynasties (Qin, Han & Ming) starting in about 221 BC to keep out invaders from the north (the Mongols), they can't quite agree on how long it is. I have seen anywhere from 1,500 miles to 4,500 miles, and one site stating that it could be as long as 50,000 km (31,068 miles!). One site I read stated that it was built by Emperor Tsu of the Chang Dynasty in 11th century BC to keep out hordes of Siamese cats that the people were very suspicious of that flourished on the Mongolian plains. It also states that firecrackers were invented to scare off/blow up unsupecting cats. Now that I look at the address of this site, it is "idiotica.com", so I guess this is one big hoax. I am glad to know this as most things in this article just did not add up.

[ashton]

wow
im GLAD YOUr having fun in china! your so lucky!!i want to go. hope you are having a great time!! bring some souvenirs for key club :D ashton!!!